Goodfellows Travels: Thursday 12th to Saturday 14th October 2006: PERU: Puno, Islas De Uros & Taquile Island

Puno is a city that lies in the south eastern region of Peru, along the shores of Lake Titikaka. Puno is a major tourist destination for those wishing to visit the many Inca ruins of Peru and legend has it that Manco Capac (the first Inca) rose out of the the lake at Puno to found the Inca Empire.

On Friday we took a full day tour of the Uros Islands and the nearby island of Taquile. Our first stop was the Uros Islands where we met the Uros (pre-Inca) tribespeople, who originally built these islands to escape the dominance of the Incas on the mainland. The islands are made `Totora´reeds which grow in the lake. The dense root of the reeds support the island and are anchored with ropes attached to sticks that are then driven into the bottom of the lake, which at this point is approximately 20 meters. The reeds rot away quickly so new reeds are added to the top of the island every fifteen days. Each island lasts for about 30 years. The island we visited houses 7 families who work together as a community to provide food, housing, re-building etc for all residents. Each `job´is allocated to each family by the Chief of the island and works on a rota system. Food is cooked with fires made on piles of rock and toilets are provided in tiny `outhouse´ islands near the main islands. There are between 30 and 50 `floating´islands at any one time depending on how the islands are split or renewed.

The Uros Islands are Puno´s major tourist attraction and our entire visit to the islands was completely geared for the tourist (the tribespeople sang nursery rhymes in English, French and Japanese and you were constantly hassled by the kids to buy souvenirs!) which did spoil the experience a little. However, the annoyance was worth tolerating as it was very interesting observing and learning about these quite remarkable islands and the life of the Uro people.

At Taquile Island we stopped for lunch and a afternoon stroll before heading back through the Uros Islands (getting trapped in the reeds along the way!) to Puno.

Sunrise at Puno over Lake Titikaka